


Two by Two

by astralis



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5481776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralis/pseuds/astralis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meryl and Ben do not have a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two by Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenFish/gifts).



Meryl and Ben do not have a thing.

Meryl and Ben have never had a thing. 

What Meryl and Ben _do_ have is years of being the links at opposite ends of a tenuous chain that goes like this: Meryl-Charlie-Tanith-Ben. And Charlie and Tanith orbit each other in a way that often leaves no room for anyone else, so then there’s just Meryl and Ben.

Who do not have a thing.

Meryl and Ben are good at making non-awkward small talk while Charlie and Tanith are cooing over each other or the nearest available small dog. They know how to make each other laugh at those late-night cast dinners where everyone’s too tired to care about anything much. And sometimes - _definitely_ on no more occasions than Meryl can count on the fingers of one hand - they make out.

It’s not a thing.

Meryl is painfully, brutally single. She’d had a nice, intelligent, good-looking boyfriend who _understood_ about ice dancers, what with having been one himself and also being her coach’s son, and never got weird about Charlie in the way that some of her boyfriends - the short-lived ones - had done. And now she doesn’t have that boyfriend, for reasons she can’t quite put into words. It was, and now it is not, and that’s the best explanation she can find.

It didn’t work, which feels like a cop-out. All those years, and that’s all she’s got to show for it. A shrug of the shoulders, a shake of the head: if she can’t explain why, then who can?

Charlie had wanted to know why. Charlie always wanted to know the why and how of things, and Meryl had almost wondered if she was letting him down by not having the answer and not being quick enough to come up with a plausible response. Charlie and Tanith had invited her over for dinner when they found out, and Charlie had kept asking, kindly, and out of concern for her, until Meryl had told him that she was absolutely _fine_ , thank you very much. Tanith had taken over after that, and she put a dog in Meryl’s lap and kept her wine glass topped up, and would have been happy to discuss the failings of their mutual ex-boyfriend if Meryl had wanted. Meryl hadn’t wanted, because she really wasn’t sure how much of it was her fault and how much was his.

Ben had just said “Let’s dance”, because Ben knows how these things sting and suck the feeling out and leave you empty, and Meryl had danced with him because it was Ben and he was there and she wanted to not feel like she was the only unpartnered person in her world. They were in Japan, at a club, when she told him about it, or tried to, and some people had had sake and they were actually the only ones in the group who were completely freaking _sober_. And it was Ben, was the point, was more important than anything else when she said “Okay, yes, why not?”. She wanted to feel like another person for a while, to climb out of her own skin and stop being someone's ex-girlfriend. With Ben, she wasn't.

After they danced he kissed her up against a wall outside, which was undoubtedly socially inappropriate and also left her with grit in her hair and on the back of her dress, and which was the most wild, exciting thing she’d done in maybe _ever_.

It was the third time they’d kissed, and this time they swore not to do it again because three times was a _habit_. Three times was becoming a _thing_. Three times meant she could no longer ignore the first two.

And Meryl did not, does not want to have a thing with someone who coaches ice dance in Arizona, with someone so intricately connected to her own life as her partner’s wife’s partner. Because as long as she and Charlie are a team, which she’s pretty sure will be forever, in one way or another, and as long as Charlie and Tanith are a thing, which will be forever, and as long as Tanith and Ben are a team, which will also probably be forever, Meryl and Ben will be linked by the chain. It's an invisible chain but it is very, very strong.

In the world they live in it’s very hard to be one person, let alone two people, without all the people whose lives overlap their own and become, somehow, intricately entwined in everything. And while it would be nice and tidy, her and Ben being a thing, meaning that there were no more boyfriends, no more girlfriends to fit into their little quartet, she’s not sure that she wants to complicate her life to that extent.

Until she does.

The day after the wedding of the year.

Charlie and Tanith had said a fond farewell to their dogs and their families and gone off on what Meryl had no doubt would be a picture-perfect, Instagram-worthy honeymoon that they’d love every moment of. And their friends had scheduled an after-party to the after-party in someone’s backyard that afternoon, because it wasn’t often that they were all together these days, and they were each other’s friends as much as they were Charlie and Tanith’s.

Meryl’s sitting under a tree, wearing a straw hat that’s a little too big for her and wishing she’d moderated her alcohol consumption a little more _responsibly_ at the wedding. She figures that’s a sure sign of having managed to grow up, somewhere along the way. She’d take some Tylenol but that’d involve getting up to find her bag and she’s happy enough just to sit right here, listening to the music, watching people, the way that they seem to weave themselves into and out of groups and conversations, some elaborate dance she only sees a portion of.

She stretches her legs out in the grass, feeling it prick the back of her calves. She could go join in, catch up with her friends, talk about how really sincerely, genuinely happy she is for Charlie and Tanith and how intensely she loves them both, to people who will listen and understand because they feel it too. 

She could, and maybe she will, later.

And maybe she won’t, because Ben is walking towards her and she thinks _Ben gets it_. Meryl-Charlie-Tanith-Ben. Her other side, if the chain links round to form a circle; her mirror image.

“Sparkling water,” he says, handing her a glass and sitting down beside her like she’d invited him.

Meryl’s grateful enough for the water that it’s not awkward, at all, having Ben next to her. Even knowing that the last time they were alone together they had engaged in certain non-platonic activities doesn’t _really_ bother her, because _on tour_ and everyone does dumb shit on tour and she is not thinking about that right now, not caring about that, and then she might take a boat trip down a river in Egypt. “Thanks,” she says. 

It tastes better than it ought to.

“Nice wedding,” Ben says.

They’d barely had a chance to say ‘hi’ last night, so maybe they’re playing catch-up, just a bit. “Yeah.” Meryl tilts her hat, trying to keep the sun off her face. “Tanith looked incredible.”

“Tanith _always_ looks incredible. I think she might have magic powers. I mean, only Tanith walks off a twelve hour flight looking like a princess.”

“Thanks,” Meryl says again, this time with the sarcasm dialed up to eleven. It’s not that she means it and she isn’t remotely offended by the implication that she doesn’t look like a princess after a long haul flight; it’s just that she can’t quite pass up the chance to make Ben uncomfortable. 

Ben’s silent for a moment, like he’s thinking over what he said to work out what he said wrong. Meryl can tell when he gets there, because he makes a face and protests that what he _said_ was not what he _meant_. He isn’t going to grovel, though, like Charlie might have done, and Meryl feels just a _little_ bad for messing with him on a day like this. 

She pats his arm, realises she’s left her hand there a moment too long, snatches it away. “She always does look gorgeous.”

“Well, so do you.”

Okay. Now _that_ makes Meryl feel bad, because she wasn’t fishing for compliments, she was teasing Ben. And yet at the same time she likes that he said it. _Really_ likes that he said it, because it’s been a while since someone she knew said it to her face and sounded like they meant it. “Thank you,” she says, and this time the sarcasm switch is in the off position.

“You’re welcome,” Ben says, and he smiles. He’s running a blade of grass through his fingers, slowly, softly, the movement of his fingers a captivating rhythm.

Meryl looks away. She looks out at their friends, at Charlie and Tanith’s friends, looks at how they seem to gravitate into pairs. She wasn’t supposed to be here alone, with no plus one, no one to reach out a hand and pull her onto the dance floor at the reception or onto the patio today.

But then, she thinks, neither is Ben.

He’s not a substitute for her ex, and neither is she a replacement for his, for the long years of tangled lives and possessions and memories. It doesn’t work that way. All they are is themselves, Meryl and Ben, brought into each other’s lives by ice dance and Charlie and Tanith. “It’s nice to see you,” she says, tentative, treading softly on unfamiliar ground.

“You too.” Ben drops the grass, turns his attention fully towards her. “Been busy?”

“You could put it that way.”

“Okay, busy, whirlwind, whatever. I hear about it from Tanith.”

Meryl hears about Ben from Charlie, sometimes from Tanith, and sometimes she’s, like, a hundred and fifteen percent sure they tell her stuff on purpose. Other times she thinks she’s being paranoid, and today she thinks they’re all four of them being ridiculous.

She and Ben are _not_ having a thing, but she’s had her tongue in his mouth on three separate occasions and maybe that’s close enough if she wants it to be. “Why do we let those two do half the talking for us?”

“Because we love them and because we don’t do it ourselves?”

“Well, let’s stop,” Meryl says. She’s feeling bold today. “Not loving them because I don’t think that’s possible, but - you and me, maybe, not Charlie and Tanith and you and me. If that’s what you want.”

She holds her breath, because it might _not_ be, because he might want to just go back to his life in Arizona and just kiss her from time to time until he finds the right girl, another right girl, and this might be the next thing in a long list of regrets.

“I think I do,” Ben says, and Meryl breathes easy again. “Cut out the middleman. The middlepeople.” And then he says “I think we should dance, then.”

Meryl looks at the four couples dancing to Hozier on the patio, and the people scattered around the yard, and at Ben. People will notice, will watch them, will draw their own conclusions the way they always do. And she doesn’t care, right now; let them speculate because it’s not as if she’s not used to it and these are her friends, at least. She’s not on national TV and maybe she wouldn’t care if she _was_ , because Ben is looking at her like she's maybe the best thing he's ever seen and she thinks that's something worth believing in.

“Okay,” she says.

It’s going to be a thing.


End file.
